Abstract (in English)

Primum non nocere. This ancient warning has for centuries
applied to the medical treatment of humans, and only recently
has it been transferred to the treatment of cultural property.
It lies at the basis of a new trend in our discipline, applied
experimentally in the 1980s, and defined at the beginning of
the 1990s. The methodological principles of preventative
conservation derive from the bad experiences of the past
and are formulated with hope for the future. On the one hand
we see great and irreversible changes in the substance of
cultural property caused by conservators (the doctors proved
more dangerous than the disease), on the other hand we
believe that future conservators will possess more advanced
diagnostic methods and techniques and new materials of
known properties.